Goodbye, Patriarchy!

Today I was feeling hopeless and wondering if the members of Congress would ever grow up and do their job — serving the people of this country — instead of looking out for their careers. I wondered if, at the age of sixty-four, I had lived long enough and it was time to find a kind and gentle way to check out. The sad stories in the “Upstairs” Readers Write [March 2018] added to my dark thoughts.

Then I turned the page to Sparrow’s essay “Goodbye, Patriarchy!” I read it twice. When I reached the end for the second time, I smiled at my dog, who was sitting across from me at the kitchen table and sniffing for crumbs. She looked up, seeming hopeful. I felt a little hopeful myself.

At the age of eighty-four I had decided not to renew my subscription to The Sun because the small print is hard to read, and the subject matter is sometimes a downer.

Then the March 2018 issue arrived with Sparrow’s essay “Goodbye, Patriarchy!” I think I am in love. I immediately wrote a check for two more years. I need a dose of Sparrow every now and then to remember that the whole world has not gone insane.

Over the years I have gone between adoring and rolling my eyes at Sparrow’s contributions. His essay “Goodbye, Patriarchy!” [March 2018] had me smiling. All I could think after reading it was, It’s about darn time. More men need to acknowledge the damage patriarchy does to us all.

I was stunned to read “Goodbye, Patriarchy!” — an essay written by Sparrow, a man who confesses to entering a woman’s home uninvited and watching her while she slept; tells a story of a “friend” who raped an unconscious woman; uses scare quotes around the word ecofeminist; and describes having absorbed patriarchal ideals to such an extent that his inner voice persistently called him a “faggot” for writing poetry — an equation of masculinity with heterosexuality that he neglects to interrogate.

Surely this is not the time for men to continue dominating the conversation.